Carol Channing - In Memoriam

Tonight, all Broadway theaters will honor Carol Channing, who died on Tuesday at the age of 97, by dimming their marquee lights. Her performances as the gold-digging Lorelei Lee in “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” and the matchmaker Dolly Gallagher Levi in “Hello, Dolly!” made her a Broadway legend.

In 2003, Carol Channing joined us for an hour in studio here at WAMC for an episode of our afternoon call-in program, Vox Pop. Her book “Just Lucky I Guess: A Memoir of Sorts,” had come out a few months prior and she was en route to an event at Bennington College in Vermont.

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This morning on the Roundtable at 11, Aretha Franklin's six decade long career is recalled by music documentarian Paul Ingles and a panel of music writers and commentators in the wake of Aretha's death at the age of 76.

Please note: WAMC does not have the rights to upload the special to our website.

Philip Roth has died at the age of 85. The Pulitzer, National Book Award, and Man Booker International Prize-winning novelist first had success in 1959 with his short story collection, “Goodbye, Columbus.” A decade later “Portnoy's Complaint” earned him great notoriety and a place in the American canon. His 1997 work, “American Pastoral,” won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

We spoke with Philip Roth in 2008 when his novel “Indignation” was published. In this archival interview we talk about his career and process.

Comedian Don Rickles has died at age 90 of kidney failure at his Los Angeles home.

For more than half a century, "Mr. Warmth" headlined casinos and nightclubs from Las Vegas to Atlantic City. N.J., and appeared often on late-night TV talk shows.

Rickles managed to shock his audiences without cutting social commentary or truly personal self-criticism. He operated under a code as old the Borscht Belt: Go far — ethnic jokes, sex jokes, ribbing Carson for his many marriages — but make sure everyone knows it's for fun.

To remember Don Rickles on The Roundtable this morning, we go into the audio vault (or a shoebox in Joe's basement) to play my interview from March 2001 when Don Rickles was promoting an upcoming appearance in Kingston, NY.